Sunday, December 17, 2006

These are some exerpts from a book about the Kosovo Albanian women that were raped during the war by Serbian army, police and paramilitaries. I decided to post this because no one talks about this. It is forgotten, as if it didn't happen. I hope this answers the questions of some people who still have dilemmas over the issue of Kosovo's future. Kosovo has no future in Serbia. Kosovo's fate has been sealed in 1999.

Stories of the raped women during the war in Kosova

by

Luljeta Selimi

Why did I have to publish the real life stories of the raped women of Kosovo? One of the main reasons is because the truth about this chapter, the most heartbreaking and sensitive of the last War in Kosovo, which ended in 1999, has remained overshadowed, and it must be brought into the public domain however shattering and disheartening that might be. The real truth always hurts and is a heavy burden, especially when it concerns the largest wound of every war, the raping.

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11. WOUNDS OF CIGARETTES R.N. from Prishtina was found in the area of the Law Faculty just after the end of the war. For months she had not been able to recover from the horror. Every now and then when she remembered she felt sad. She would cry and would start to tell her horrifying story.

When they took me out of my house they moved me straight to the area of the Law Faculty. There they placed me in one of the teacher’s rooms; hand cuffed me and kept me prisoner. I do not quite remember for how long I had no food. Strangely I was actually not hungry but I had a tremendous thirst. Thirst had dried my lips and made them bleed.

Some days, when they took me for interrogation, one of them asked me to undress. Obviously I refused. One of the policemen smacked me hard and the blood started to bleed fromm my dried lips. The other one “The Boss” came close and after picking the blood from my lips while tasting it said in irony: “Apparently all Albanian women have sweet blood so that I will enjoy them one by one with my knife” then with his knife he started to cut my clothes into pieces until I remained completely naked. I tried to do something but I was powerless. Two of them were holding me while one of them raped me.

The only resistance I could make was to scratch the face of the person raping me. “You and all other Albanian women and all the ones that will remain in Kosovo will pay dearly for this” he told me in an angry voice while one of them tied me again leaving me naked. In a few moments he ordered one of his colleagues to light his cigarette. He also offered me one. I was feeling so bad that in every second passing I felt my strength vanishing. After a short break he came closer and said “They call me Nenad Stojanoviq and I will now make sure you have a life long unforgettable memory from me. Perhaps you still want to live your life as you are young and beautiful but I will stop it very soon. I will kill you slowly but surely” and then he placed the cigarette on my chest by extinguishing it there, which created a horrible burn wound.

Then he lighted another cigarette and any time he wanted to extinguish he did that on my body by burning it bit by bit. That way he burned my body in a mater of hours. There is no word to explain the pain and the screaming, it was a terrible torture that I had never even seen in movies and I had never thoughtthat “humans” would apply that to other humans even in the case of dealing with the worst enemy ever. The next night after they untied my hands and several other people raped me one after the other. I do not know exactly howmany people played with my body but today I can see that my body is covered with cigarette burns and many knife cuts as they were writing words on it with their knifes.

R.N. interrupted her testimony as the emotional strain became too heavy and she burst into tears. For R.N. life has a bitter meaning for she carries on her body the stamp of cigarettes from those April days of 1999.